Fox Show Unveils ‘the Least Shocking Plot Twist of the Year’

If you’re a fan of Fox’s "Animation Domination" lineup — and you haven’t been keeping up — you may not want to read this. (In other words, spoiler alert.) But in what the Los Angeles Times’ Show Tracker calls “the least shocking plot twist of the year,” Fox’s animated comedy “Family Guy" brought back a fan favorite just three weeks after he was killed off.

As previously reported, fans were outraged when the show killed off Brian, the family’s intelligent, talking dog. The decision sparked a petition to bring the character back, although some fans were suspicious of the show’s decision to kill him in the first place.

In a twist that a number of observers predicted, Sunday’s episode, “Christmas Guy,” featured the baby genius Stewie using his time machine to go back in time and push Brian out of the way of the car that was about to kill him.

“But wait, didn’t the series make a point of showing how Stewie had destroyed his time machine, thereby preventing that solution? Yes, but if you’re bothered by gaps in plot and logic, ‘Family Guy’ probably isn’t the show for you,” the Times notes. The plot does take care of that little technicality, for what it’s worth — see the clip below.

For good measure, the show’s creator, Seth MacFarlane, tweeted on Monday, “I mean, you didn’t really think we’d kill off Brian, did you? Jesus, we’d have to be f—— high.”